Would Tigh or Adama not recognise either 6 or Starbuck as a younger Ellen.

I propose something akin to the Clark Kent/Superman effect, or you can also call it nature versus nurture.

While Ellen and Starbuck look similar, they are so different in personality and the way they carry themselves that, while those two could see similarities in appearence, they wouldn't instantly think, "Hey, is it just me, or is (my friend's) surrogate daughter a younger robo-clone of Ellen?"

OG Galactica brought me one of the first crushing disapointments of my young life: I'd received a Cylon Raider toy that was one of the first generation that had non-firing plastic missiles.

Fortunately, I was able to get the original Colonial Viper that shot the red missles before that famous choking death ( a red missle from a Battlestar Galactica toy was responible for a little kid's death around ' 79 ). After the death, red missles on the toys were made that only popped out a little from the toy, then you pop it back into it's original position.

Also, one could take apart and combine the original ship components like the Micronaut toys of the '70's.

Six is Six and Starbuck is Starbuck and Ellen Tigh is Ellen Tigh. None is a younger or older version of each other. That is indeed Starbuck's body in the Viper. I have no idea what Starbuck actually is, though it's interesting to note that, despite stating that there are 12 Cylon models, the writers made up the Basestar Hybrids when they needed something like that, outside of the 12 models. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Starbuck is something else outside of the 12 models.

Also, noting that the sequential numbering of the final five is weird as by the numbers we know, these final special five must be numbers 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12 - why'd they start doing special ones with 7, then go back to regulars with 8, then go back to specials again for the rest? - just points up somewhat the futility of trying to theorize this show as, for the most part, it has been made up as it went along, and is not following a master plot plan.

It seems reasonable to me that Starbuck v2 might be an effort for the Cylons to try and extend the downloading technology to "normal" humans - supposedly they did it for the first time when Earth got fried, if we believe the flashbacks, so perhaps they decided all the mucking around with trying to assimilate humans to Cylons through sexual reproduction is just too slow, and they skipped a few steps and tested it out on Starbuck.

@camyluna and others <blockquote>And now it's fairly obvious something is up with Starbuck. If the numbers are right, then Ellen has to be an older version of either her or six.</blockquote> <div id="hide">What I'm curious about is the age of the dead Starbuck, she really shouldn't have set fire to herself like that because that could've been a future Starbuck she found, who died in the past. Say a jump portal was installed by that gas giant and she jumped to Earth only to crash there back in season 3, that is possible, but maybe she went back and crashed there later on, for all the clues about a truly bizarre timeline she never guessed that possibility. In the original show the seraphim brought Apollo back from the dead, so there's always that option if you're trying to figure out if she's a cylon or just a normal zombie. So who are the seraphim in this show? There was only a slight hint about that when the sound they made rang out to Tyrol on the algae planet.

Man's creation coming to destroy man was always a metaphor for the human instinct toward suicide, that makes it very different than the original show where a Lucifer character guided a then extinct race of lizards to build the Cylons. This time they're billed as a human creation, coming to kill all the humans, like your own hand pulling a trigger.

Time travelers are often confused for deities, and devout religious beliefs are often used to maintain a databank throughout eons of human mood swings, more and more it's looking like something akin to jump technology will be adapted to send people to other eras and not just locations. In Jumpland your dead priestess can come back to chat with Roslin for instance.

The closest thing so far to a Lucifer character is the lawyer with the dead cat, who also happened to work with Bill Adama's father who was there when the Cylons were created, and who seems to have some thoughts about the senior Adama being a giant douchebag. The Cylons agreed with that sentiment, they thought the humans were giant douchebags, and so killed them. But the Cylons went back in time somehow if they were decimated on Earth 2,000 years ago, another good question is who did the decimating. That should be the word for how Cylons reproduce maybe, "decimating".</div>

Six is Six and Starbuck is Starbuck and Ellen Tigh is Ellen Tigh. None is a younger or older version of each other. That is indeed Starbuck's body in the Viper.

Thank you.

I have no idea what Starbuck actually is, though it's interesting to note that, despite stating that there are 12 Cylon models, the writers made up the Basestar Hybrids when they needed something like that, outside of the 12 models. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Starbuck is something else outside of the 12 models.

Like I said pages ago - she's the thirteenth. "There are twelve models" isn't the same as "there will only ever be twelve models".

And I'm gonna go out on a limb right now and say that under no circumstances do I think any of this will turn out to have anything to do with time travel. The idea that there's some sort of cycle in place doesn't automatically mean that the characters are gonna go back in time and create themselves - I think a form of continual reincarnation is much more of a match thematically, and really, seems very obvious given all the talk of resurrection ships and being "reborn".

I'm with SteadyUP on there being no time travel also. Producer & show-runner Ron Moore, formerly of the Star Trek franchise, has made numerous statements to the effect of doing things on BSG in a deliberate departure from the straightjacket and crutches that the various ST bibles imposed on him. Time travel is too much of a Star Trek cop-out, and I doubt to the point of confidence that there will be no time travel in any of the final revelations of what's up in BSG.

I kind of get the vibe that Starbuck is neither human nor Cylon. Perhaps it is because the show (as of the last episode and its accompanying recap for the previous episodes) has made sure to label her as the "Harbinger of Death". I really think she might be one of the Gods, or a manifestation of a god, or something of the sort. For a show that has spent a lot of time/plot dealing with prophecies and the fulfillment of divine will, this doesn't seem impossible.

Purely speculating/hoping, I don't think there's anything to indicate that Starbuck is part of a super-powerful benevolent race. As the harbinger of death, I'm really hoping that she brings about the end of the human and cylon races in as entertaining a fashion as possible.

The synopsis for the <i>Caprica</i> series is saying Eric Stoltz invented the first Cylon just one or two generations back, so how they <div id="hide">got on the other side of all those giant signposts to their own Earth two thousand years ago is an interesting problem. Maybe the Cylons from the <i>Caprica</i> era, after they were defeated, met some robot friends from far away who took human form and brought in the newer toaster design, resembling the relic found on dead Earth. That would get around a time travel gimmick. In the original series (not that the original is all that important in the end), the Cylons had some external help becoming their own race in the form of Count Iblis, who even donated his own voice to Imperious Leader. Maybe something from old Earth showed up to be robot buddies, maybe it was always there and became sympathetic to the Cylons when the humans did something stupid. <blockquote>I'm really hoping that she brings about the end of the human and cylon races</blockquote>You know, that's interesting too, because the original was ripped off from Star Wars in so many ways, and Star Wars was ripped off from a Teutonic myth about Dark Bastard and his twin offspring, and that story culminated in the end of all life with heaven and earth consumed in fire. And there is Starbuck having a Jedi funeral for herself.</div>

and Star Wars was ripped off from a Teutonic myth about Dark Bastard and his twin offspring

...that requires Lucas to have had any idea of Luke, Leia, and Vader's connections when he started out, which he didn't.

But back to the topic...maybe whatever was responsible for the Earth Cylons is what the modern Cylons regard as God. We know they're monotheists, but have there been any details on the actual history behind their beliefs? There could even be something hinting at a great Cylon holocaust 2,000 years ago. Though how that would reconcile with their (presumed) understanding of having just been created a few decades ago, I'm not sure. Come to think of it, how would they have developed a distinct religion in the first place - who was the Cylon messiah? Maybe they had some kind of contact with the ancient Cylons very early on (who do seem to have been living among the human colonies by that point, at least via the Tighs), and that's why they rebelled in the first place.

I think I'm going to go with the baker's dozen theory of Starbuck.A bakers dozen is twelve plus one more.There are twelve colonies of humans, plus one more that turns out to not really be a colony of humans, but really cylons.There are twelve cylon models. Where's the 13th that's not really a cylon? Well, obviously it's Starbuck.

<blockquote>that requires Lucas to have had any idea of Luke, Leia, and Vader's connections when he started out, which he didn't.</blockquote>

Nah, it just requires that Joseph Campbell feed him the script, which he kind of did. If Lucas stuck with the myth (which included a Yoda among others) Luke and Leia would've hooked up like was originally implied but that was obviously unworkable in this modern age of relatives marrying non-relatives. Frakking weird myth there. And the world ends! Surprise!

Totally stupid conjecture here, but a little kid told me this idea once that if a pagan pantheon went to war it would be the god of war who won, whoever that would be among the Twelve Lords of Cobol. Dunno how to apply that here except a monotheistic Cylon deity could've been whoever killed the remainder. I shut up now.

I still think there are at least 2 layers of Cylons - the ones created this time around on the 12 colonies that rebelled - and the older ones that found them out in space after the 1st Colonial Cylon war.

The older ones have been around in one iteration or another since before Kobol.

At this point in the repeating cycles there is a real question of how much actual original humanity there is left in the "humans" - to what extent is it all just various iterations of cylons creating their own successors over and over again.

The species is stuck in a reincarnation loop. Everyone is trying to break free of that.

They thought they were looking for Earth, but I think they're really headed toward Nirvana.

The species is stuck in a reincarnation loop. Everyone is trying to break free of that.

So, maybe Starbuck brings about the death of that cycle.

One of the things that's troubling me about Starbuck's arc is that whatever gave her the power to find Earth seemed somewhat benevolent before this last episode. She's really seems abandoned by whatever was guiding her now. I think that this guiding force will probably explain what happened to her at some point.

And

Loeben did say that the locator was probably on for a very long time. Starbuck probably did travel back in time 2,000 years ago when Earth was still populated and got caught up in what destroyed the Final 5. If that was the case, maybe she got caught up in whatever saved them? Ellen seemed to have a plan that would let at least her and Tigh live.

I saw the lawyer (I forget his name now) in a preview montage, and can't wait for him to show up. Maybe he'll fill in some of the blanks?